According to his personal/campaign Web site, Mr. Wertz has held the office of Commissioner of the Revenue of Loudoun County since 2003.

According to his personal/campaign Facebook page, Mr. Actor says “Right here, right now, I am going to change the way Personal Property taxes are estimated, calculated, collected, etc.”

[NOTE: You must be logged in to Facebook to see Mr. Actor's page. For those without Facebook access, click here to see a screenshot of the top portion of Mr. Actor's campaign page, and click here to see the bottom part.]

Mr. Actor also identifies the office he is seeking as Commissioner of the Revenues, plural, rather than the office as it is currently configured, Commissioner of the Revenue (singular), signaling perhaps an intention of widening its scope.

We look forward to a spirited and substantive contest between Mr. Wertz and Mr. Actor.

Bob Wertz, Loudoun County Commissioner of the Revenue

Josh Actor is the Democratic candidate for Commissioner of the Revenues

Does the commissioner of the revenue(s) have anything at all to do with the way taxes are estimated and/or calculated? And currently, if I’m not mistaken, we can pay them either in person or via mail or online. Perhaps he plans to begin offering an additional option whereby his staff will stand at the traffic lights along 7 with yellow vests and buckets?

Now this is more like it! What I have been trying to get through to Bob Wertz is that the money problem in this county is not with the taxes but the way they are CALCULATED. Attack the calculation problem and with one jot of a pen all of our financial problems will go away for 2-3 years at minimum.

Y’see, where most municipalities and counties get it wrong is they’re mired in the Base 10 numerical system. This narrow minded approach overlooks one of the key governing powers: The POWER to determine the CALCULATION.

Let me break it down for you like I broke it down for Bob Wertz. Say you have an average family who must give the county $1000 in taxes. Maybe they are rich and happy, maybe they are poor and sad, I don’t know, but that’s their $1000 sitting there on the table going to Loudoun County. We’re not going to mess with that because it is what it is, year after doggone year. That’s Base 10 money.

Now suppose the county was on a different system, like Base 8. Then that $1000 cash the family gives each year immediately becomes $1750 when Bob Wertz rakes it in. Pick up $1000, file away $1750; pick up $1000, file away $1750. Right now there are 10 files in each folder but when you switch to Base 8 there are only 8 and every file gets a lot fuller each time through. Pretty soon the files are full and Bob Wertz has so much money he does not know what to do with it all and he’s building schools and hospitals and every grocery store sells meat for a penny a pound and we’re even giving money to the poor counties to make them happier. It’s that simple, I told him, “IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BASE 8, BOB!”

But old Bob Wertz just can’t get it; he mutters something about “So I suppose then our $30 billion deficit would be closer to $100 billion?” and I just throw up my hands.

“You’re missing the point of Base 8, Bob. Even the Egyptians with all their hieroglyphics could understand this: When two numerical systems clash the lower one wins, every time. When you have less slots to file away your money or coins or tokens or artifacts or what have you, it’s simpler and more efficient and you have bigger numbers than the other guy, and you can translate those numbers into pure gold, via trade.

“Sure, over time, the other guy – let’s call him ‘Fairfax County’ – is going to say, Hey this Base 8 is a pretty sweet deal, let me try that out, but in the meantime your vault is filling up with gold. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BASE 8, BOB. IF WE DON’T DO IT SOMEBODY ELSE WILL.”

And now with this Josh Actor fellow we finally have someone with the courage to change the calculation. As they say, the youth will inherit the Earth.

Gee Bob Dobbs,
Liberal economics is even scarier when you put that out here trying to make a point.
I knew you guys didn’t understand the first thing about economics…but jeez… You didn’ need to embarass yourself.

Written by RWN about 4 years ago.

Mr Dobbs- I highly recommend you take your Base 8 idea and put it all over Josh Actors campaign literature. That’s a recipe for success.

Agree with Stone, here. In this economy, our number one problem in employment is that some folks will not do some jobs…even if it means doing something they do not like to put food on the table.
Personal responsibility is getting up and doing it anyway.

Yeah, he has no Web presence now except for his LinkedIn profile and our post about him. He had the wrong idea of what it would take to be a viable candidate initially – thus the silly Facebook page – and has to redo his image. He is not going to sashay in and take the office from Bob Wertz; he is going to have to study the job and build a case for himself beyond what he originally thought.

[...] was certain to be one of the more entertaining ones to watch this season. But alas, Josh Actor (link to Joe B’s fine introductory post on Josh Actor here), who was having troubles raising his $750 filing fee (link to fireball Liz Miller’s post [...]